"Two hundred thousand," says he, "and that's my last word."
A man came to the door behind me, which opened on the yard. There hung a long iron crowbar, bent up in the form of a triangle. The man began to beat this with a horseshoe, and the sound would carry maybe a quarter-mile.
"Name your own terms," says Ryan. "Come, name your price!"
"You does me too much honour," says I, for how could I tell him the facts?
"What do I care for your honour?" Ryan had played like a sneaking coyote before, but now he talked out like a man. "I've bought better men than you with a hundred dollars, and now I'm going to insult you with hard cash. Your price, you thief!"
The sound of the gong must have been a gathering signal, for men were straying in from the corrals, and there was soon a tramping of feet and buff of talk from the messroom at my back.
"D'ye think," says Ryan, "that I'd be under any obligations to such as you? I ask no favours. I only try to make it worth your while to do what's right for once. Come, have you any manhood in you? I appeal to your manhood to save me. Oh, turn your back, you hound!"
I ran to my saddle in the yard, opened my warbags, grabbed out a pad of paper and fountain-pen, then pushed my way through the growing crowd about the messroom doors, until I won back to the kitchen.
"Ryan," says I, "set down on that meat block, and write down what I say in yo' own words."
"What new treachery is this?" he asked.